Field Notes
Intake week vs invoice week: why sell-through drifts
A practical look at how dating goods into inventory changes the sell-through story your merchandising meeting sees.
Sell-through looks simple until two people mean different “start clocks.” Intake week usually means when units become available to sell in the warehouse or store. Invoice week follows the supplier document. When those dates sit days apart — and they often do on imports — the same option can look early to planning and late to finance.
On an inventory sell-through rate dashboard we ask clients to pick one clock for the merchandising huddle and keep the other as a reconciliation view. Mixing them in a single percentage is how Friday arguments start.
A workable habit: print both dates on the option drill-through, but calculate the headline sell-through from intake only. Then markdown timing follows when the customer could actually buy the goods.